An Elden Ring speedrunner has put up a $10,000 bounty for beating an absurdly difficult challenge for the game’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC expansion.
As reported by GamesRadar, streamer Distortion2 is kicking off a new speedrunning category centered around Shadow of the Erdtree. Named ‘Rune Level 1 DLC%’, it actually goes far beyond just a level restriction.
While runners do have to remain at Level 1 throughout their playthrough, they’re also limited to weapons found in the DLC’s Land of Shadow map. That means that, no, you can’t bring in that +10 Moonveil katana that’s carried you through the base game.
On top of this, players must defeat every single remembrance boss – which includes some truly nightmarish fights like the Scadutree Avatar and Commander Gaius – as well as Bayle, vile Bayle. Oh, and if all that wasn’t enough, while you’re assumedly free to collect power-increasing Scadutree Fragments throughout the DLC area, you’re limited to leveling up your blessing once per boss defeated.
Distortion2 explains his reasoning behind this limitations in the challenge’s announcement video. “Just rune level 1 wasn’t really hard enough in my mind,” he explains, “as we all know how strong some weapons from the base game can be.”
He adds that the Scadu blessing limitation was a way to prevent runners from scouring the map for Scadutree Fragments as seems to be the preferred method in standard speedrunning categories.
Best of all, the Rune Level 1 DLC% challenge is open to everyone. So if you fancy yourself a share of that $10,000 bounty (it’s $4,000 for the top spot), you can head over to the category’s Discord server to download a custom PC save file that’ll get you started. If you think you’re enough of a gamer to tackle this monumental challenge, you’ve got until August 11 to set your best time.